WWII Journal: Framingham's Herbert Jordan signaled conclusion of war

Monday

Aug 18, 2014 at 12:01 AM

By Jeff MalachowskiDaily News Staff

FRAMINGHAM - For the sailors training at Sampson Naval Academy in central New York on Aug. 15, 1945, word of the Japanese surrender during World War II didn't come from commanding officers - it came from Herbert Jordan.Jordan, a Navy signalman, heard news of the Japanese surrender on the radio and immediately climbed a six-story tower and used flag semaphore, a telegraphy system using hand-held flags, to signal to his fellow sailors "War Ends.""When I got down I got bloody hell," Jordan, 86, says with a laugh and a smile. The commanding officers "yelled at me: ‘Who gave you the authority to do that?’ We were all just celebrating."Flags have always been an instrumental part of Jordan’s life, whether he used them to pass messages along to his fellow sailors, alert them of the end of the war or to showcase the patriotism he’s had since he was a child. Close to 15 flags adorn the outside of Jordan’s Framingham home, while his living room is decorated with the stars and stripes."I’m very proud," Jordan says as he takes off his World War II veteran hat, which features two American flag pins, and smiles at it.Jordan has always loved to give back to his country, even at a young age. His first job, at age 15, was cooking and selling sodas at Cushing Army Hospital, a short distance from his boyhood home on Pine Street in Framingham. It was there where he first saw the horrors of World War II."They started bringing injured troops in from every place," he said. "We ended up with a lot of paraplegics."Though he was motivated to join the military and fight in World War II, Jordan was too young. A little over a year after working at the hospital, he got word that his neighbor, an Army soldier, was listed as missing in the Battle of Kasserine Pass in North Africa and was later pronounced dead.Jordan’s inspiration quickly turned to anger, and though he was a year too young to join the Army, he enlisted in the Navy at age 17 in January 1945, just eight months before the war would end."I decided fairly quickly," said Jordan. "It was sort of an inspiration."During his physical and in boot camp, commanding officers raved about the strength of Jordan’s eyesight and quickly made him a signalman, who relayed messages through Morse code and flag semaphore."My eyes were so good and strong," he said. "(Morse code) came so easy to me."Though he never left the United States during the war, Jordan and his fellow sailors were preparing to invade Japan before that nation surrendered.Jordan, who would have been on the top of a ship serving as a signalman during the invasion, is convinced the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved the lives of many American troops, including his own.After the war ended, Jordan was sent to the Philippines and later to Shanghai, China, where he stayed on the USS Cocopa until 1947. He recalls he and his fellow sailors getting one night a week off to go out on the town while stationed in Shanghai."We had a lot of fun," he said. Jordan was later shipped back to the United States and spent a few weeks at Pearl Harbor, years after the Japanese bombed the base in a surprise attack that threw the U.S. into the war."It was well before they made the USS Arizona memorial," he said. "That was still just a sunken battleship there."The lifelong Framingham resident was discharged from the Navy in 1948 and returned home, where he painted houses and met his wife Marge at a wedding in Boston a few years after he returned."She said, ‘I took one look at you and said that’s the man I’m going to marry,’" Jordan said as he fondly peered at a picture of his children and wife, who died 10 years ago after an aneurysm.While the eyes Jordan used to become a Quartermaster of Signals, third class, are slowly weakening, his passion and zest for life are not. He is never far from his computer, where he listens to the happenings in the region on an online police scanner and is currently taking computer lessons.Jordan's dedication to America's fallen soldiers has also not wavered. In recent years, he has joined others to mark veterans' graves at Framingham's Edgell Grove Cemetery with flags on Memorial Day and Veterans Day."We made it a point to do it," he says as he holds an American flag.Jeff Malachowski can be reached at 508-490-7466 orjmalachowski@wickedlocal.com. Follow him on Twitter @JmalachowskiMW.

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